


A mouthful of nails

by potsugi



Category: Gintama
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, kamui is simple minded and takasugi is a pseudo anarchist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-03
Updated: 2015-01-03
Packaged: 2018-03-05 05:19:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3107624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/potsugi/pseuds/potsugi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s a strangely sick satisfaction in punching Kamui right back; for starters, he finally shuts up</p>
            </blockquote>





	A mouthful of nails

**Author's Note:**

> this is sort of a sequel to 'Calling yourself a rebel without a legit cause is just pretentiousness, right?', but it can be read on its own. Also im so so srry.

Kamui enjoys eating out. And by eating out he means taking his food (all seventeen sandwiches) to the little veranda of his apartment. If he’s lucky, when he throws his trash into the streets it will hit some unsuspecting passerby. If he really is lucky the sun won’t hit him directly in the face, and if he really, _really_ is lucky he will run into his neighbor.

Today is a good day, he decides as he exits and a strong smell of cigarettes hits his nose.

“Is smoking the first thing you do in the mornings, Neighbor-san?”

His neighbor glares at him through gray puffs.

“It’s two in the afternoon.” 

“Oh my, it really is early.” Kamui usually wakes up at four in the afternoon. He bites into his fifth sandwich proudly. How good to be awake in the morning “At least you are learning from your past mistakes. I bet all your furniture is rotting away.”

Neighbor-san smirks in a way that makes Kamui want to smirk too; and to punch him in face and get his number, never mind that he lives right next to him (he really is lucky).

“I don’t have any furniture.”

“ _No way._ ”

“The stores want to trick you into thinking you need couches and coffee tables shaped like rabbits.” his neighbor gives him a reproaching glare. Kamui’s living room is full of useless crap; he takes pride in being a mindless consumer. Hey if you have the money, why the fuck not. _And_ that rabbit table was 50% off. “You _don’t._ ”

“But you slept so soundly when you came over.” Kamui’s smile is unnerving. Takasugi feels the need to throw his cigarette off the veranda and run away from the kid. “I didn’t even get the chance to ask you your name.” he pouts. Takasugi feels a cold wind run up his spine.

“Shinsuke is fine.”

“Then Kamui is fine too.” he says with a mouthful of food. “Do you really believe that about stores or are you just broke?” Takasugi turns away with an annoyed face and Kamui laughs. “You poor creature, come spend the night anytime, we have air conditioning here.”

Air conditioning truly is a blessing, Takasugi thinks as he makes a face at Kamui’s wink. But going into the brat’s apartment is like going into a one-dollar store. Disgusting.

“No thank you.”

“I still can’t believe it so I’m going to take a look. Excuse me.” He says as he finishes his seventeen-sandwich lunch and jumps from his veranda to Takasu- _Shinsuke’s_.

“Wait, what the fuck.” in the process, Kamui knocks Takasugi’s entire pack of cigarettes off into the city abyss, lost forever. “Hey!”

“Oops, I guess I owe you a pack now.” he says with the least apologetic smile “Guess you’re gonna have to come to the store with me next time. Oops.”

Takasugi really wants to take this kid by the collar and throw him off the veranda after his cigarettes.

“They’re bad for you anyways.”

Kamui lets himself into the empty living room and feels personally offended by now plain looking it is. “You really have absolutely nothing.” he shakes his head.

“Right, can you get out now.” Takasugi doesn’t bother going in after the kid. He settles for keeping a safe distance, who knows what kinda psycho his neighbor is. But instead of walking towards the door, Kamui walks into the kitchen.

“Please tell me you at least have a fridge.” but when he opens it there’s nothing inside but rotting tomatoes and a lot of yakult. Kamui shrieks as Takasugi finally follows after him with all the intention of getting rid of this plague. He finds him digging into the fridge looking for something edible, and glares as hard as he can.

Kamui turns around with a disgusted expression “You know; that glare would be a lot more effective if there were two eyes.” he winks again, this time with his left eye, clearly mocking Takasugi.

So he starts dragging the kid out by the collar.

“You need to not speak to me again, you weirdo.” surprisingly enough, Kamui breaks free with one swift move. Takasugi is left glaring at his empty hand. Lately all he does is glare, really. He is living the full college experience at least.

“That was a very strong grab you had there. Wanna be friends?” past the mild annoyance, Takasugi finds his neighbor amusingly outgoing. He can imagine what Shouyo would say (“Try to be less antisocial in college, make friends out of your usual circle”). So he grins at Kamui, right there in the middle of his empty living room.

“Get me back my cigarettes and we’ll see.”

Kamui smiles, but the thing about Kamui’s smile is that it always hides ulterior motives.

**xxx**

They end up going down to see if the pack is still somewhere on the ground. Takasugi assumes Kamui is a minor (obviously, the dude has such a childlike face; creepy) so he doesn’t object much, though if the pack isn’t down there he does threaten to make him pay for it (which isn’t much but, he accepts bitterly, he _is_ kinda broke).

“Oh there they are! Lucky us.” Kamui points at a lonely box in the middle of the sidewalk. Takasugi holds his gaze but evidently Kamui isn’t going to pick them up. So much for getting them back, he literally only walked him out.

As Takasugi bends to pick the box up, Kamui kicks him straight in the face. Something cracks and a fluid runs down his lips so thickly he has to spit it. It tastes like old rusty nails.

So much for being friends too, what the fuck.

“Bummer, I thought your reflexes were better, Shinsuke.”

Takasugi feels his broken lip. He forgets entirely about the cigarettes.

“Now I’m wondering if you lost that eye because you were too slow so like-” there’s a strangely sick satisfaction in punching Kamui right back; for starters, he finally shuts up. A punch and a kick are quite different, and Shouyo taught him to get back double at people, so he also goes for kicking the brat’s stomach, right where he stores all that food (how the fuck does it fit in there?). Kamui falls back a few steps and some pedestrians have stopped to look at them. 

Kamui’s eyes are wide open as he touches his sticky bloodied nose and looks at the red on his fingers. Then he’s laughing very loudly.

“Shinsuke! That was great! I haven’t bled in a fight in _years_!” people are definitely staring now. “Man I knew you had it in you.”

Takasugi is not only confused; he is also in pain, and he is also amused. Above all, he is surprised at not being annoyed at all.

“I thought we were going to be friends.”

“That’s what this is, or what do you do with _your_ friends? Must be boring.” Kamui is still looking at his own blood like he really hasn’t seen it in a long time.

Takasugi thinks back to Gintoki starting his own job, to Zura and Sakamoto both studying what they like. To Bansai and Matako and their band. And what does _he_ do?

Just what has he been doing all this time?

_Boring indeed._

He picks up his cigarettes and lights one. There are blood stains on the filter when he exhales.

He scoffs “So you’ve been in a lot of fights, kid? What, since the uterus?”

Kamui’s smiling again. Takasugi notices whenever Kamui’s smiles aren’t genuine he closes his eyes. It would be a good moment to head back to his apartment, but he stays in place.

“Since high school wasn’t at all what I wanted.” the redhead takes a break from smiling to analyze Takasugi. There is not a trace of annoyance or anger, only amusement. Kamui is amused too, not only for the excitement of fighting bloodily, but because his neighbor seems much more offended by him going into his living room rather than by him breaking his lips. “Leaving home was by far easier than passing all those dumb subjects I’m never gonna care about after graduating.”

Takasugi smiles “I understand that much. But how do you afford all that crap furniture?”

 Kamui walks to him, and although Takasugi half expects him to start another fist fight, he keeps a relaxed posture. Until Kamui puts an arm around his shoulders and pushes him forward.

“I’ll take you. And if you always punch like that, then I bet you can make a lot of money there too.”

**xxx**

The first thing Takasugi notices is a strong smell of sweat. It reminds him slightly of his own high school days. He also notices Kamui hasn’t let go of his shoulders.

“This is an illegal fighting ring.”

Kamui looks far too pleased with himself “Of course it is!”

As they go deeper underground the people they meet along the way greet Kamui with a strong sense of respect and an even stronger sense of fear. Takasugi briefly wonders if this brat who is younger than him runs the whole thing.

“Over there is the owner.” Kamui points at the highest seat in a corner. An old man with long hair greets them both, but otherwise pays attention to nothing. There are people beating each other every seven square feet and blood collects in dry puddles all around the floor. Takasugi finds it unnerving that he is not weirded out at all.

Kamui has to almost talk in his ear for him to hear clearly “Will you just watch or will you partake?”

Takasugi scoffs and pushes the redhead away “I’ll watch you.”

That seems to give Kamui energy and not a minute later he is facing a man at least half a meter taller than he is, and definitely wider. But Kamui smiles and moves swiftly around. Takasugi can see the bigger man is actually scared and the people around have stopped their fights to cheer on Kamui. It takes him two kicks to knock the man flat on the floor.

Kamui fights barefooted, Takasugi notices. He suddenly wants to partake.

“Shinsuke, these people are no good. Stop staring like a fangirl and start punching.”

Takasugi lands a kick right on Kamui’s cheek, and he immediately spits red. For every punch Kamui throws, he answers with another, and for every time one of them dodges the other draws blood. His skin burns where they touch, and it hurts, but he thinks the pain bounds him down to earth; makes him more aware than he has been in a long time. It’s like waking up submerged in boiling water.

Soon, the crowd seems to have no idea who to cheer on.

“You took away my fans, Shinsuke.”

“I thought _I_ was the fan.”

Neither of them wins, but Kamui gets the money from his previous fight. As they exit together, Takasugi sees the owner move his cup of sake in his direction.

“Mmmh, he likes you. Did the same the first time I came here.” Kamui starts heading to a cheap-looking restaurant. The sun is setting down and their bloodied faces become just dirty to the eyes of anyone but them.

“Maybe I should start coming too. Seems far more entertaining than a major in college.” Takasugi wipes off the blood from his mouth when Kamui knocks the air out of his lungs as he pushes him into a wall. And the only thing inside his line of vision is Kamui’s face, full of bruises. He is smiling, but his eyes aren’t closed and they seem far too blue for Takasugi’s liking.

Like before, he could pull away. He could go home and go back to trying not to talk to his neighbor, but he stays in place.

“Maybe you should.”

Kamui’s kiss is gross and sticky, and he didn’t even try to clean off the blood from his lips. It feels fresh and warm, and tastes like metal all over again. 


End file.
